Busy Hands Homestead

An Empty Gym.  Gallon jugs of tempera paint. Rolls of colored paper.   Scissors. Glue.  A closet of voting booths lined with canvas. Satin Banners.  A few busy kiddo's after school and busy mama's that stayed on for late nights and  Ready. Set. Go.  The backdrop for the Lowell Elementary Christmas show:   All the windows line up for one continuous scene.  Notice the snow flakes?   Snow flake crystals are formed on multiples of three... thee pointed stars, six pointed, nine, twelve etc...  I think it has something to do with the angle of the water molecules.  So,  I folded them on 30 or 60 degree angle resulting in stars that have either 6 or 12 points.  A super late school night for Ivory and Sylvan who patiently looked at Christmas books while Adam picked up our new stacked washer...  My coordinating skills are lacking sometimes - but then I thought that this back drop ...

"Mama! Painted trees!" I glance back at Sylvan in my rear view mirror and then back out of the windshield to try and decipher what he is telling me.  The car smells of apples. "Painted Trees! He repeats his phrase until my eyes rest on a line of small red Norway maples that line the road leading into a yet undeveloped development. Oh.  Painted trees. Yes, they are beautiful. This is the first autumn that Sylvan is really taking in.  He wades through the dunes of yellow maple leaves to pick up they few red ones and hand them to me. "Painted Leaves." Ivory begs daily, reminds me constantly: "Mama you promised that we could make Halloween decorations."   "Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow.  Before dinner. After dinner. After School. Now!!!!!!!!" I know I promised. I sigh. I feel guilty. I say things like: "We have to make food for your dad first." or "It is too late." or "later." or simply "oh, Ivor...

Previous birthdays we invited all our our friends.  We had potlucks. We sipped beers and chatted while the hoard of children played in the background.  I anxiously eyed the weather forecast.  Her birthday day yo-yo-ing between sunshine and rain.  Our home is not suited to squeezing large groups of folks into, and this year it seemed the focus should be on the birthday girl. So I narrowed the list down based on her friends rather than mine..  hoped we would have sunshine and that everyone would understand...  and made invitations. Ivory is five. This birthday, more than previous birthdays, feels like a rite of passage. Suddenly she is school aged. She is enrolled in kindergarden and after this summer I will be dropping her off into the care of another for hours each weekday.  This is a change I can hardly fathom.  While I stitch the seams of her new touch-the floor-princess dress I worry about back packs, school lunches and if she will fe...

I remember from one of my college classes that the highest biodiversity is found on the edges of bio-systems - tide pools, the soil surface, where the forest meets a meadow.  We are living an edge, the undulating line between winter and spring, warm brilliant sunshine followed by flurries of snow, and it is filled with activity.  When we can, I try not to leave the neighborhood or even our yard and we just stay put.  The car stays in the driveway.  Bikes, helmets, toy trucks and shovels are pulled out and we play and we dig. We move rocks.  We tuck away seeds.   We dream of flowers, and because we are to impatient for our plants to grow, we make our own. We raid the recycling bin. We paint, we cut, we fold, we glue and we sort through the buttons for just the right colors and sizes.  We hang our final project, a colorful paper and cardboard wreath on the front door - to welcome home Adam from his field work, to we...

The past few days have been a little difficult for Ivory and I.  We have been butting heads over everything: putting on clothes, picking up toys, going outside, going inside....    So, I thought a few moments of quality one on one mom and daughter time might be just what she was needing.  During nap time (Sylvan's) we pulled out the colored paper, glue and scissors.   We cut the cards, flowers, hearts and leaves and glued these together.  By the time I finally went upstairs to wake my little man up we had twelve cards lined up on the table. (I did not expect her attention span to last through quite that many cards.) What you need: colored paper scissors (one for mom and one for the kiddo) glue pen What you do: cut each card to size.  I measured our envelopes and decided to make the folded size of the card 3.5" x 6" with the crease at the top.  cut a six petaled flower for the back ground (or a 5 petaled flower) cut...

I am making invitations for Ivory's birthday party.   Late last night I considered all the crafting materials I had stashed around the house, pulled out a few bits and pieces and curled up next to my husband on the sofa to make a prototype.  The card turned out bright and lacy: perfect for a little girl's get together in, what is here, still the beginning of spring.  Supplies: white cards and matching envelopes (I am re-purposing Christmas cards I made and turned out ugly) colored card stock,       - a rectangle, smaller than the card      - a green heart for the leaves      - a circle for the center of the flower (mine are an 1 1/2" in diameter) a sewing needle thick thread (hand quilting thread works great) a glue stick one button for each card 20 inches of lace for each card Place the beginning of the lace in the center of the card stock circle.  Tack it down with the thread. ...